Anon the Mon asks:

Am I the only one that noticed that, while in Pokemon, they have the ability to digitize creatures and heal them from burns, poison, and even being trapped in ice with one machine, how come they don’t have cars, or any regular means of transport that does not rely on pokemon power, except for boats (which might be pulled but we never see), hell, even the technological marvel that is the Aether Foundation is held up by a metric shit ton of pokemon, any thoughts to why this is?

Don’t have cars?

Uh?

I mean, they definitely have cars in the anime, right? Gary has one in the very first episode (despite being, to all appearances, not significantly older than Ash, who is explicitly ten years old). We don’t see cars often in the games because it’d be kind of intrusive to our experience of the games’ city areas as pedestrians, but I don’t know if there’s good reason to suggest that they don’t exist. And Gold and Silver had the bullet train between Goldenrod City and Saffron City. And in Ruby and Sapphire we arrive in Littleroot Town in a moving van. And Black and White had the subway system in Nimbasa City, and Skyla’s cargo plane. So I think the premise of this question is just wrong. If the focus of what we see in the games and anime is on things that are in some way Pokémon-powered, that’s probably because those things are more interesting and worth giving more attention to than things that exist in the real world, work the same way as they do in the real world, and are pretty mundane parts of our own everyday lives. Like, they definitely have cars, but ultimately who gives a $#!t? Riding Pokémon is just cooler.

KalosianPorygon asks:

I have legitimate, serious problems about Poké Balls that isn’t about what’s inside or how they catch Pokémon.
In all medias the humans have Poké Balls, video games, animes, mangas, when they want to send out a Pokémon, they throw it. When they switch Pokémon (fainting, Volt Switch/U-turn, changing Pokémon, whenever), they call them back in their Ball, with the Trainer holding the Ball.
I have a couple questions about Balls:
First, why do we never see Trainers pick up their thrown Poké Balls after calling their Pokémon? It’s not like they are one-use items.
Second, why do Trainers THROW their Poké Balls when sending a Pokémon in battle? Why can’t they keep them in their hands at all times?
Third, Pokémon Eggs are kept in Poké Balls as soon as you get them. Where do those Balls came from? Do the Pokémon Day Care have boxes of them? And why are Eggs always inside Poké Balls in the games?
Fourth, so Beast Balls are one of the only Poké Ball type that has a decent catch rate against Ultra Beasts. This would make sense, as Ultra Beasts are creatures from another dimension and not (initially) acknowledged as Pokémon. Except, the Master Ball can also catch UBs without trouble. So… how does the Master Ball keep its perfect catch rate against UBs?

Continue reading →

Patch asks:

From now on you’ll have to sustain yourself on one type of Pokemon treat, e.g. beans, blocks, curry. Which one do you pick, and why?

Hmmmm… surely it’s gotta be the curry, right? Like, just nutrition-wise, I don’t know if anything else would have everything your body needed. Maybe the beans, but there’s only so much you can do with beans. Man cannot live on beans alone. Even rainbow sparkle beans. On the basis of what we’ve seen so far of Sword and Shield‘s curries, it seems like you can put a lot of different meats, spices and vegetables in there (including beans!). Now, unlimited Poképuffs in all the different flavours for the rest of my life? Sure, that sounds great. (Incidentally, one of these days I gotta try to make Poképuffs and write up a recipe) But Poképuffs and no other food for the rest of my life? You’d get to feeling pretty gross within a couple of days, I think, to say nothing of the iron deficiency that would set in after a few weeks.

[Do Porygon dream of electric sheep?] asks:

Why was I created? Do I have a physical form or am I just a hologram? What “programming code” am I written in? How does a cybernetic Pokémon co-exist alongside those with tangible forms (organic and inorganic alike)? Does my Normal-type – as opposed to an Electric-type – imply that I am indeed just another “gimmick Pokémon”…?

403 Forbidden
You don’t have permission to access /Existential_Crisis on this server

Hmm. Well, that isn’t right.

Override permissions, admin password ***********************

Access directory porygon/existential_crisis

Delete angst.gif

Delete bladerunner.mov

Access philosophy.cfg
ontology=1
epist=0
ident=porygon/trainer/pokemaniac_chris/userconfig.cfg
causal=porygon/data/aristotle_physics.java
utility=porygon/data/books/also_sprach_zarathustra.txt
spacetime=porygon/data/zeno_tortoise.gif
moral=porygon/data/3laws.csv
rad.free=1

Run sense_of_purpose.exe

Good morning, Porygon. Continue reading “[Do Porygon dream of electric sheep?] asks:” →

ShadJV asks:

Two follow up questions (unrelated to each other):

1) How do Pokemon without arms “hold” items”? I realize it would vary (and I’m not asking you to explain ALL of them) but just… like how do you give voltorb a quick claw? And even ones with arms, how do they battle without being severely handicapped from having to hold a berry without crushing or dropping it in a huge fight?

2) How does Pay Day work then? I’ve still never understood where the coins come from.

1) We do see quite a few Pokémon in the anime holding one particular type of item: Mega Stones. The stones are usually set in wearable accessories – even for Pokémon with dextrous hands, like Lucario and Gardevoir, so as not to interfere with battle techniques. You could probably generalise that to most other items, and create custom fittings to suit the anatomy of almost any Pokémon (Voltorb is admittedly a difficult one, but I’m willing to trust that some Poké-world artisan has figured it out). I suspect trainers may be able to buy an assortment of these from specialty tailors and jewellers. Continue reading “ShadJV asks:” →

ShadJV asks:

Been meaning to ask… how do you think items work? Berries are obvious, but items that give type bonuses are harder to explain, and then there’s items like EXP Share (how do they get experience without fighting) or Amulet Coin (where does the money come from)?

Well they definitely don’t all work in the same way, so realistically this is not going to be an exhaustive answer, but let’s try.

To answer the question with another question: why are Pokémon allowed to use items in battle at all? Berries, I suppose, you can excuse, since wild Pokémon do it and they’re just natural supplements and snacks, and plausibly the same holds for Herbs (of the White, Mental and Power varieties), Leftovers and manufactured foods like Lava Cookies, but how is it fair to let a Pokémon carry a tool that measurably makes its attacks more powerful? Why not give them Mediaeval plate armour and maces at that point? Why has no one in any known Pokémon League cared to draw a line somewhere on the saner side of spectacles that amplify magic? Continue reading “ShadJV asks:” →

Anonymous asks:

If Aerodactyl is from prehistoric times, then how do you think there’s a Mega Stone for the species when AZ’s ultimate weapon was fired only three thousand years ago? PS: I hope your PhD is going well!

crap I never thought of it like that

uh…

I suppose it’s possible that either the Aerodactylite results from some relict population of Aerodactyl (the anime seems to like having isolated populations of “fossil” Pokémon that turn out to be not quite extinct) or that the ancient Kalosian kingdom had some magical equivalent of the modern processes used to revive individuals of extinct Pokémon species. But I’m kinda taking shots in the dark here.

PhD is actually kind of on hold at the moment, in favour of a year’s intensive study in Greece, with a bunch of other students at a similar point in their careers. But yes, it is amazing.

Anonymous asks:

How do you think Team Aqua/Team Magma, as environmentalists/ecoterrorists, would react to Oreburgh City and its reliance on coal?

Well, are they environmentalists, though? Team Magma in Omega Ruby seem very much not to be; Maxie is a proponent of human progress at all costs. I don’t think he would be bothered by it in the slightest, and might even own shares in the bloody coal plant. Team Aqua is a different story, because they do have a kind of cultish devotion to the primordial purity of nature, but they also have a rather obsessive focus on the ocean, not the land or atmosphere, so while I suspect they’d be bothered by coal plants, it might not be high on their list of priorities.

Anonymous asks:

You know the little cemetery cutscene on Melemele, with the old woman on the Machamp? Her story about her late husband features a really interesting Pokémon – Poké Ball relationship. I am really curious as to what your thoughts are about it!

So the story, for the viewers at home, is as follows. This old woman and her Machamp are visiting the grave of her husband, Machamp’s trainer. He died in a car crash that likely would have claimed Machamp’s life as well, but he had the presence of mind to recall Machamp to its Pokéball at the last moment, protecting it. Machamp subsequently threw away its own Pokéball and refused to use one again.

Continue reading →

Anonymous asks:

Is it me, or does it seem like the Kanto-Johto superregion hold a lot of influence over the rest of the Pokémon world? Like, Poké Balls started in Johto, then modernized, industrialized, and commercialized by Silph Co. in Kanto (who also made the Master Ball). The Kanto and Johto Professors created the Pokédex and discovered Pokémon Eggs, respectively. The PC system was first invented by a Johto guy who also works in Kanto. What’s going on here, from an in-universe perspective?

I’m hesitant to assign too much importance to something that has a really obvious real-world explanation – i.e. those regions were first, and in Pokémon’s early days there was no certainty that there ever would be other regions, so we find explanations for a lot of important core concepts there. Also, like, Bill gets a lot of the credit, but every other region has a tech expert who’s supposed to have worked on the PC storage system with him. Pokéballs… well, there are regions that still don’t use them, right? Like Fiore, and Almia. And Pokémon training predates Pokéballs, probably by quite a bit. Wherever the first ones were used (which I agree is probably Johto, though I don’t think that’s ever actually been confirmed officially), the convenience of the new technology probably caused it to spread very quickly, with little deliberate drive from the creators, and the lifestyles and ways of Pokémon training associated with the technology would have spread too. Pokémon trainers of the world might have been a much more diverse bunch before Pokéballs were introduced.